Novel and Highly Stable Apatite Supported MoO₃ Catalysts for Selective Methanol Oxidation to Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is the most important commercially available aldehyde due to its high reactivity and usability as a C1 building block [1]. Formaldehyde has been forecasted to have an increase in production of near 5 % p.a. and reach 36.6⋅10⁶ tons p.a. by 2026 [2]. For-maldehyde is primarily produced by the Formox process, where methanol is selectively oxi-dized over a Fe2(MoO₄)₃/MoO₃ (FeMo) catalyst, at high conversions (>99 %) and high selec-tivity (92-95 %) [1]. The major problem of the process is the short catalyst lifetime (6-12 months)[3], due to the MoO3 component forming volatile species with the methanol feed [4], which migrate and re-condense downstream in the reactor resulting in selectivity loss and increasing pressure drop.
To mitigate the problem of the short catalyst lifetime, synthesis and investigation of novel promising materials is needed. This includes understanding the active phase, deactivation phenomena, and the scale-up, when going from catalyst powder to industrial sized pellets. These areas have been addressed in this study of novel catalysts composed of MoO3 supported on hydroxyapatite.